"Help! Help!" she shouted, desperately, and the cry of pity and appeal rang vainly up and down the street. A few of the battered drabs of women leaned listlessly out of the windows, scarcely amused by the horse-play of Haxo and his companions. They saw so many much more terrible things every night and day in the Street of the Butchery.
CHAPTER IX MY LORD OF BARRA
Very pitiful her voice sounded, and she thought, "Oh, if Wat Gordon were only here, I should not have been treated so!" Alas! it was the more unfortunate for both that Wat at that moment stood on guard at the city entrance of the camp of Amersfort.
But just as Haxo put his arm about her waist, a loud, clear voice higher up the street cried with authority, "Hold, rascals, what would you with the lady?"
"That is no business of yours!" instantly replied one of the men who had come up last.
Kate looked up hopefully. She saw at the corner of the street a tall,
soldierly man clad in black velvet and wearing an orange cloak, evidently an officer of the prince's household. He had his sword bare in his hand, and seeing her manifest distress, he ran towards her eagerly, his shoulder-ribbons waving as he came.
The fellows about her shrank back and drew their short sailors' "whingers." But the gentleman instantly attacked them furiously with his long sword, for Haxo and his companions had fled at the first sound of Barra's voice, while the two who had arrived later were engaging Kate's deliverer. Their short swords, however, were no match for the officer's cavalry blade. The weapon of one presently clattered upon the pavement while his comrade ran off down an alley, holding his side as if he had been wounded.
Then, putting his left arm firmly about her, and holding his sword bare in the other, Kate's rescuer urged her to mount quickly up the street.
"They may return," he said; "they may bring others with them, my lady, in which case I might not be able to protect you, or even to serve you otherwise than by dying for you, which very gladly I would do."
Now Kate desired much to walk by herself, finding the arm about her waist discomposing, and having also the market-basket to carry; but it seemed at the time a thing impossible to say to a man who had just saved her life or, at the least, had preserved her from the hands of many cruel ruffians.
In this manner they reached in safety the wider spaces of the upper streets, where Kate gladly saw the town's officers marching hither and thither with their halberds ported and their pistols in their belts.
Then she disengaged herself deftly from her protector's circling arm.
"I thank you, sir," she said, very gratefully, "for your so great and timely kindness to me. I shall never forget it; nor yet will my father, whose name is Roger McGhie of Balmaghie, in the country of Scotland, ever forget your gentle courtesy to his daughter in the land of her exile."
The stranger doffed his bonnet and bowed low.
"I also am of your nation, fair mistress," said he. "In my own country I am called Murdo, Lord of Barra and the Small Isles; but now it is mine honor alone that is great, for I also am an exile for truth's sake, and must serve a foreign master, as you see."
And he touched with a certain noble humility his orange cloak and the prince's badge and motto that were upon it.
Kate bowed in turn, and her eyes expressed a warmer interest than she had yet shown.
"My Lord of Barra," she said, "I have heard of you and of your distinguished services and position. I am the more grateful to one so noble for protecting a poor maid and an exile from insult."
"It is my privilege and my very great good fortune," said he, again lifting his hat with more than ordinary deference. "Let us walk together to your home; you lodge with your cousin of Earlstoun, do you not?"
"Yes; but how may my Lord Barra know of that?" said Kate, in some bewilderment.
Her companion smiled complacently.
"Though I be but an exile, yet, by the prince's special favor, I am set in charge of the good behavior of this turbulent city, wherein it is my duty to know everything. This morning it chanced that I was on a tour of inspection in the worst and most dangerous parts, when it was my hap to be able to render you a very slight service."
Barra called a porter and bade him carry Kate's basket and walk behind them; but this that proud lass would not allow, whereupon the provost-marshal dismissed the man with a movement of his hand. And so in earnest talk the pair approached the entering in of the street of Zaandpoort.
It so happened that Wat Gordon, released from his duty in the camp, had hastened homeward as fast as he could, hoping that he might be in time to help Kate with the preparation of the vegetables, and in especial with the salad; for it had become his utmost pleasure to do for her the most common and menial offices. As he arrived at the end of the street he saw Kate coming towards him, apparently lost in friendly intercourse with a tall officer of the prince's household. He stood transfixed.